The Wind Up Bird Chronicle was also very good. You're basically reading the list for a book club I was in 4 years ago.

That's what happens when you barely read for 6 years! You spend a lot of time catching up on stuff you should have read awhile ago. The good news is that you can find all of the popular paperbacks from years ago at Goodwill for $2! And there are no holds on the books you want at the library!

Heck yeah! I have loads of catching up to do, myself. I haven't read about 50% of the books I own (used book sales are just too tempting!) and I just got a new library card, so I'm excited to read books for free this year. I have a serious book-buying problem that I'm going to try to only use on cookbooks for a while.

_________________But if one were to tickle Pluto, I suspect that it might very quietly laugh. - pandacookie

55k usd is like 4 cad or whatever equivalent in beavers you use on the island - joshua

I had to get The Orphan Master's Son. I'm looking forward to spending the rest of the weekend with it.

_________________I would eat Dr. Cow pocket cheese in a second. I would eat it if you hid it under your hat, or in your backpack, but not if it was in your shoe. That's where I draw the line. -allularpunk

I was kind of ambivalent about the killing off of the love interest at the end; it was a brave move for a YA romance but at the same time... I was kind of in it for the romance, and I'm not sure I'll care as much now that the guy is dead. I suspect he might turn out not to be really dead anyway.

I've reserved the next one from the library, but I'm not jumping up and down to get it or anything.

I also reread The Time Traveler's Wife, which made me cry like a baby reading a sad book. Somehow I had a very clear memory of how it ended which actually wasn't how it ended at all... I wonder if the ending I remembered was actually the one from the movie? Was the ending of the movie different?

I'm onto In the Land of Invented Languages which is objectively really well-written, I think, but it's reminding me of the fact that as an almost-fourth-year linguistics student I really shouldn't read pop-linguistics books. I keep disturbing my fiancé yelling at the book about all the little things it has wrong or oversimplified or left out.

_________________Jack Sprat could eat no fat and his wife could eat no lean, and then their daughter became a vegan and got a boyfriend with an onion allergy. --- My dad.

Just finished The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, and really enjoyed it.

I can't remember if I read this book...I read Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician about a year ago and was looking for other books about circus performers. I have the sample of it on my Kindle but not the full download so maybe not, will have to skim through it at an actual bookstore to know for sure.

I was kind of ambivalent about the killing off of the love interest at the end; it was a brave move for a YA romance but at the same time... I was kind of in it for the romance, and I'm not sure I'll care as much now that the guy is dead. I suspect he might turn out not to be really dead anyway.

I've reserved the next one from the library, but I'm not jumping up and down to get it or anything.

I just finished The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, and I'm disappointed.I liked The Shadow of the Wind a lot when I read (a German translation of) it some years ago, but this one felt like a cheap rehash of the same ideas with a slightly different theme and a different ending. Unfortunately the translation wasn't the best either. There were a lot of passages that felt awkwardly worded or as if the wrong word had been used, giving everything a slightly different meaning or weight. And on top of it all, the blurb seemed to describe an altogether different book (that I kept expecting while reading the more disappointing version). As funny as it may sound, I think I would have preferred the book seemingly described in the blurb, consisting of much the same elements but in a different order - hinting at a different story, and (hopefully) a different central theme and outcome.

So far The Orphan Master's Son is phenomenal, not that it's a surprise to anyone here.

Footface, are you on goodreads?

_________________I would eat Dr. Cow pocket cheese in a second. I would eat it if you hid it under your hat, or in your backpack, but not if it was in your shoe. That's where I draw the line. -allularpunk

I just finished The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, and I'm disappointed.I liked The Shadow of the Wind a lot when I read (a German translation of) it some years ago, but this one felt like a cheap rehash of the same ideas with a slightly different theme and a different ending. Unfortunately the translation wasn't the best either. There were a lot of passages that felt awkwardly worded or as if the wrong word had been used, giving everything a slightly different meaning or weight. And on top of it all, the blurb seemed to describe an altogether different book (that I kept expecting while reading the more disappointing version). As funny as it may sound, I think I would have preferred the book seemingly described in the blurb, consisting of much the same elements but in a different order - hinting at a different story, and (hopefully) a different central theme and outcome.

Now I'm off to find a book I might like better.

I had the EXACT same experience reading The Angel's Game, like "isn't this basically the same book??" I'm glad I'm not alone.

Pines by Blake Crouch, enjoying it so far. Hopefully it doesn't turn out to be too scary because I like mysteries as long as they aren't too violent or anything that would give me nightmares. I've read and liked most of the No 1 Ladies Detective Series books.

I need something good to read. I'm simultaneously feeling crappy, and have no attention span. I need fluff, but because I'm really super irritable right now, I also don't have the patience for silly. Basically, I need chocolate in book form.

Have you read Chocolat? It or a lot of Joanne Harris's books are food for that. I also like Alan Bradley's Flavia de Luce series which starts with The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie.

ETA: I just finished Peaches for Father Francis and really enjoyed it. Harris dealt with a lot of issues in a skillful manner, and you could tell she did a lot of research for the book. The ending was a little too neat, but overall happy ending is happy.

I just finished reading this, I wouldn't call it fluff, but it was a fun, quirky read. I really liked it!

Pines by Blake Crouch, enjoying it so far. Hopefully it doesn't turn out to be too scary because I like mysteries as long as they aren't too violent or anything that would give me nightmares. I've read and liked most of the No 1 Ladies Detective Series books.

There are lots of good "cozy" mystery series. Pick an interest or hobby, and there is probably a relevant series! I used to enjoy Jill Churchill. The Elizabeth Peters Amelia Peabody books are set in Victorian England/Egypt.

_________________"This is the creepiest post ever if you don't know who Molly is." -Fee"a vegan death match sounds like something where we all end up hugging." -LisaPunk

So far The Orphan Master's Son is phenomenal, not that it's a surprise to anyone here.

Footface, are you on goodreads?

No, I don't do goodreads. Should I?

Yes! I typically take note of your recommendations in this thread. Goodreads would make that process easier for me. Please do!

Exactly! I don't mind jotting your recommendations down from here and adding them to my goodreads though. A co-worker recently complimented me on my to read list and it was a real feather in my cap*.

*not vegan

_________________I would eat Dr. Cow pocket cheese in a second. I would eat it if you hid it under your hat, or in your backpack, but not if it was in your shoe. That's where I draw the line. -allularpunk

I just devoured Eye of the World and am now partway through The Great Hunt. Forget who recommended this series in this thread, but this is exactly the kind of book I was craving. I suspect I will have read all of the Wheel of Time books in short order.

_________________"I think I am going to turn into a chickpea." ~DakiniLove is like a pineapple, sweet and undefinable~ Piet Hein

^I really want to read that Anek. My sister's husband had it on his bookshelf when I visited the Netherlands in the summer but it was written in Dutch, so I couldn't read. I want to read it in English, though.

I was reading some FS.Fitzgerald criticism last night and already feel like rebutting some of the stuff I read. I know his novel Tender is the Night has a loose structure, but I don't think it ruins the whole novel or anything. On one of my undergrad essays, I suggested that the plot structure/DD's movements in Tender is the Night loosely follows the course of the nightingale in the Keats' poem (which would be a loose structure if indeed that was its inspiration of a bird flitting through and out of the garden--the last lines of the book suggest that DD's whereabouts were no longer accurately tracked, just like the bird vanishes from the garden at the end of Keats' ode) from which its title is taken and my prof practically had an orgasm over that observation. But yeah, that was just me speculating and it's a loosely structured novel, but so what. So redeemed by the man's gorgeous stylin' skillz.